DC Metro Police Officer Rips Conservatives ‘Pandering’ to Cops While Downplaying Capitol Riot

DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone rebuked Republicans who appeal to voters with a pro-police platform while dismissing the severity of the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Fanone appeared Tuesday on Morning Joe, where Joe Scarborough asked him how he feels about “elements of a political party who have gone around claiming they want to support police officers for the past several years, and yet, [they] openly mock and ridicule you and others who were almost beaten to death” on January 6th.

The officer replied that he has been illuminated on “political speak” because of that, and “I don’t want to be pandered to any more than I want to be demonized or villainized. I don’t want to be politicized as a law enforcement officer. I want to do my job, I want to be held to a high standard because I’m a law enforcement professional, but I also want to be afforded the resources, training, and manpower to effectively do my job, and to be held to those high standards.”

In the last few months, Scarborough has repeatedly denounced conservatives for portraying themselves as the “pro-police” political party, even as they downplay the violent, attempted insurrection fueled by former President Donald Trump’s election lies. Multiple polls from recent months have shown a growing number of Republicans buying into misinformation about the riot and/or losing interest in holding rioters accountable for their actions.

Scarborough pursued his line of questioning again later in the conversation, asking Fanone how he feels about police criticism from the media and from leftists, even though he was “attacked and nearly beaten to death by people on the political right.”

“It seems to me that police officers have been getting it from all sides over the past several years,” Scarborough said. “None more so than you.”

Fanone responded by addressing charges from the political left that police officers are connected to America’s history with systemic racism. He said that “I’m the first person who wants to be part of that conversation going forward” about that. Then, he turned back to the question at hand by commenting on the right’s attitude towards the police.

Watching the right handle officers who responded to the Capitol and saying ‘oh, we love police, we just don’t love those police.’ I’m not stupid. Like, I see it for what it is, and it’s pandering, and I don’t want to be pandered to. I want to have an honest conversation, and I think we’re not engaging in an honest conversation in this country with regards to a lot of things, one of them being police reform.

Watch above, via MSNBC.